Bloodlines
by scifiromance
Summary: When Klaus realises just how much he will need doppelganger blood throughout the rest of his eternal life, he realises he has to make sure the Petrova line doesn't end with Elena, and he has a witch to help... Series 3 AU. Delena.


**A/n: This story follows canon until the S3 episode 'The Reckoning' except for two differences. The events of 'The Birthday' still happened, Elena finding out about Damon's own search for Stefan, Andie dying etc, but in this story those events didn't happen on Elena's birthday, I've shifted her birthday for the purposes of this story. Also, I tweaked the end of 'The Reckoning' as you'll see when you read. Enjoy. :)**

"And where have _you _been the last two days brother?" Rebekah hissed as she shoved her shaped form upright from where it had been tersely reclined on the old storage sacks Nik seems to expect her to accept as the four-poster bed in this stank old warehouse he seemed to be treating the newest five-star hotel in Mystic Falls, considering how determined he'd been that she not leave it.

"Busy." Klaus replied smoothly, completely unperturbed by her tone. Behind her sheen of confidence that she let out as irritation, he knew that his little sis was terrified of him, always had been. That was a large part of why he hadn't used one of those accursed ash blades to tuck her back into a snug coffin for another 90 years. Fear was power, and it was only a good thing to have power over an Original. When her fair, perfectly shaped, eyebrows rose questioningly, he decided to oblige her with part of an answer and held up a large blood bag, printed as 'Property of Mystic Falls General Hospital'. "I've been a little preoccupied with certain business."

Rebekah was able to inhale the scent of the blood through the bag and gave a start of surprise. "You've found more werewolves to turn already?" she asked, slinking warily over to him and sliding one long, manicured nail down the side of the bag, almost, but not quite, breaking through the plastic. Niklaus wouldn't hesitate to kill her if she wasted a drop of that little doppelganger bitch's blood. She grimaced bitterly for a split second as she heard Stefan begin to rouse from the sated sleep lingering from his latest blood binge. It was ironic, in a way Klaus was worshipping at the Petrova girl's altar as much as the two Salvatore brothers ever had. He _needed_ her more than they did evidently, considering how quickly the flip of one little mental switch had led to Stefan draining her before Klaus had territorially ripped her away from his insatiable jaws. "Or did you decide to indulge in one little celebratory drink?"

An amused smile flittered briefly across Klaus' flawless features, "Oh, as much as I'd _love _to have a toast to my future endeavours…" He suddenly gave the blood bag a light, teasing, squeeze and laughed as Stefan was next to him in an instant, eyes inky black with bloodlust, teeth bared as his handsome, boyish face contorted to feed. "But I wouldn't want to tease our Ripper here, who's going to have to go teetotal for the time being, in regards to his ex at least…"

Stefan's face fell instantly back into its human mask, defiant pride flashing in his eyes. "You're the one who shoved me off the wagon once and for all Klaus…" He gave the corpse of the blonde stripper he'd played with the night before a tap with his foot, smiling as she rolled onto her back, her face, literally petrified in death, now in full view. "So now you have to deal with the consequences."

"Ohh, gladly." Klaus assured him gleefully, "Consider me your willing sponsor Mr Salvatore." He made a fake bow, arching his brows when he saw that Rebekah was looking on, distinctly annoyed. "What is it; I thought you'd be happy to spend a couple of days…one-on-one with your love of the 20's 'Bekah?

"It hasn't exactly been what I imagined, as you well know." Rebekah muttered petulantly, her slim arms wrapped defensively across her chest, almost as if she literally had to hold herself together.

"Don't tell me you _liked _that broody, guilt-ridden boy that was switched on Stefan?" Klaus asked with genuine disbelief, "I've been trying to get him like this all summer, and it was worth the wait, he's even more vicious now that he was in Chicago!" He sighed a little as he looked over at an impassive Stefan, "Of course, it was a shame that I had to compel him, but…" He flashed a knowing grin at his sister as realisation dawned, "But a completely switched off Stefan isn't what you wanted is it?" he guessed, closing the small gap she'd made between them to get right into her face, "He may no longer care about little Miss Gilbert anymore, which suits your jealousy just fine, but equally it means that he's not turned on by _you _anymore…"

Rebekah glared at him before spinning away from him. "Just tell me why you're shoving that forever damned doppelganger's blood in my face again if you haven't found any more werewolves yet?"

Klaus tapped his nose, teasingly asking for patience. "You'll see in just a moment." He turned towards the gaping warehouse doorway, "You may bring them in now!"

Two beefed up guys, probably paid muscle when Klaus wasn't compelling them, walked woodenly in but they themselves weren't important. In their grip they each held a human woman, one in her late forties who was cursing her head of as she struggled, the other much younger, barely out of her teens, dangling limply in her captor's hold. "Breakfast?" Stefan asked sarcastically, although Rebekah could see a gleam of hope in his blackened eyes.

The older woman snorted, her eyes fixated on Klaus. "You've added a Ripper to your posse? I always thought you liked control Klaus?"

Klaus patted her shoulder in faux reassurance that made the woman flinch. "Don't worry; I've proved I've got total control of him."

Rebekah meanwhile approached the woman, curiously scrutinising her. "She sounds just like Prudence…" She commented, smiling wryly at Klaus, already having guessed the connection.

"Why don't you tell my sister how you're related to our old friend Prue, Charity isn't it?"

Charity's head lowered, "Great-granddaughter." She conceded, with a fearful glance towards the still unconscious younger girl.

"Let me guess…" Rebekah speculated, "She's inherited the family gifts?"

"Well, she denied it until I tried to test out the next generation…" Klaus began to answer; licking his lips as he easily took the girl out of the arms of his 'hired' help.

Charity's self-control began to splinter. "Yes, I'm a witch, a powerful one, just like Prudence was, alright?" she snapped, "I've already told you I'll help you, just like she did…"

"In exchange for your daughter's safety of course." Klaus reminded her, "You witches, you always want something in return…" He gave Charity an indulgent smile, stroking her cheek with one hand, as she flinched angrily, "Don't worry; I've always been a man of my word."

"What I'm wondering is why you need a witch once again?" Stefan asked, "You got the answer to your problem back when we crashed Mystic Falls High…"

"My_ first _problem." Klaus clarified darkly, "I'm through underestimating the witches and their obsession with balance, no doubt the supernatural community is already coming up with a way to thwart me. Charity here…" He kissed the side of Charity's tightly closed mouth, "…with her power of foresight, is going to help me be one step ahead of them."

"You already are, there are no more failsafe tricks against hybrids. The Original Witch never thought the doppelganger would be brought back by a sister witch." Charity spat on the floor, hating the selfishness and downright stupidity of that particular spellcaster. "But your triumph won't last forever. She is human, and therefore will not be alive to give you blood for as long as you'll undoubtedly desire it. The doppelganger is the most potent supernatural being in existence while her humanity is untainted after all."

"That's a good point…" Klaus said thoughtfully, shaking his head as Charity's daughter began to stir, "She can't be preserved forever, which means that the Petrova line must continue to provide doppelgangers for the world, _my _world."

Rebekah's beautiful face contorted into its full menace as rage consumed her. "You're going to allow her _children_?"

"It won't exactly be familial bliss for her sister." Klaus cut in coldly, "As well as draining her blood, I may as well use her as my own little doppelganger factory, for future investment."

"Your window for that investment is short." Charity informed him icily, "It is this doppelganger's destiny to be turned before her eighteenth year elapses."

"It's Elena's 18th birthday in four days." Stefan said stiffly.

"_You _won't be sending her a present that I don't approve of first." Klaus warned sharply, smiling tightly as Stefan shrugged unconcernedly. "And I'll make sure that she doesn't turn."

"You aren't listening." Charity said through gritted teeth, "The elder Salvatore may be a stauncher protector for her than the younger, but even then, eventually only her descent into the hell of vampirism will be her only form of escape from you and she will take it."

"Then, since you're so sure that I'll always need a doppelganger, we'll just need to make sure that Elena Gilbert is a mother _before_ she's turned!" Klaus declared.

"How?" Rebekah asked bitterly, "She didn't look ready to move on from Stefan even as he made a meal of her throat."

"I think Charity can find a way around that…" Klaus murmured, throwing a glance at Stefan that he acted on immediately, seizing Charity's daughter as he gained permission to let the bloodlust consume him once again.

" Not Faith! Please _no_!" Charity cried out desperately, her knees buckling when Stefan's grip on her daughter didn't lessen. "There is one spell…" She choked out.

"Tell us about it." Klaus replied smoothly, "I'm not walking blindly into spell land again."

"It was written to let a witch bear her dead husband's child, as long as love exists in the souls of the two to create a link, then a child can be created." Charity took a deep breath, "Vampires are dead, so there should be no difference in the spell."

"Could it be made a doppelganger?" Klaus asked eagerly.

Charity shrugged, "That if for fate to decide, but the child would be human and of the Petrova bloodline. Doppelgangers are always identical, down to the birthdays…" She cried out again as Stefan's teeth hung threateningly over Faith's slender throat, "I could accelerate the pregnancy, make sure the baby has the birth of a doppelganger…" She continued frantically.

"What do you need to do it now?" Klaus enquired, his tone almost beseeching, but his eyes were harder than stone.

"The blood of the doppelganger, a link to her lover, and…" Charity gulped convulsively and Klaus could tell she was having a crisis of conscience.

"Spit it out…" He whispered softly against her ear, looking past her face to fixate on Faith.

"The blood of a pregnant woman." Charity breathed out, her eyes closed. "_Voluntarily _given."

"Don't you know that vampires have the power to make _anything_ voluntary?" Klaus taunted her with a laugh.

"Unfortunately." Charity muttered, her eyes forming resentful slits.

"I'll need you to be a little more…charitable to us if you want to live. I only assured you of your daughter's life remember." Klaus shot back, "Stefan, go and pay a quick visit to a maternity ward will you?"

Stefan was gone in a flash but Klaus still felt himself seized by impatience. "I suppose you'll need candles, herbs, all that witchy paraphernalia?" he questioned Charity dryly.

Charity answered with a voiceless nod and Klaus threw a bag, overflowing with what he'd termed 'witchy paraphernalia', at her feet. "Don't be doing anything anti-vampire with that." He warned.

"I wouldn't dare." Charity hissed as he let her go and she ran to Faith, collapsed on the floor where Stefan had dropped her, stroking back her sleek ebony hair. "Oh baby, I'm so sorry…"

"Here's your ingredient." Stefan's voice announced suddenly as he seemed to re-materialise in front of her, a young woman, her belly swollen with the a nine month pregnancy, writhing in his grasp like a fish caught on a hook. "This is Tracy."

Klaus was in front of her in one graceful stride. "Hello Tracy…" He told her in a syrupy, soothing voice, "Cut yourself with this knife…" He pulled a switchblade from his belt, "…and bleed into Charity's little ceremonial dish over there please." Tracy's pupils, huge with fear, suddenly shrank into dazed pinpoints, her breath slowing into calm. In one quick movement, she had the knife out of Klaus' waiting hand and had slashed it across her own palm, watching dispassionately as her blood dripped into the dish.

Klaus threw the blood bag into Charity's hands, "There's your doppelganger blood as ordered." Charity grimaced but pricked the blood bag to let its contents trickle out to join Tracy's blood with a businesslike detachment.

"I need a link to her love." She forced out as Rebekah slowly lit the candles, by her venomous glare apparently more than ready to snuff the life out of this plan.

"Your turn Stefan." Klaus said excitedly, his grin widening as Stefan bit into his own wrist and let the dark red blood fall to mix with Elena's and Tracy's.

As soon as Stefan's blood collided with the others, Charity's dark eyes rolled back into her head, her whole body stiffening as the flames of the candles flared brightly. The words of magic, which Klaus had never understood even in his thousands of years on Earth, flew from her mouth and then, just as suddenly, the candles were abruptly extinguished and Charity slumped forward. The three vampires watched in silence as she recovered, staring at nothing but obviously self-aware. "Did it work?" Klaus snarled when she remained ominously silent.

"Yes, I felt life spark." Charity murmured without looking at him.

Klaus slapped a reticent Stefan on the back, "And should our Ripper here expect a Father's Day card?"

Rebekah thought she saw a triumphant gleam in Charity's, psychic, eyes then. There was a definite satisfied quirk to her lips as she stared Klaus down levelly. "The girl will be a Salvatore as well as a Petrova."

"Well then, I suppose congratulations are in order!" Klaus exclaimed, remembering his compelling victims are his gaze scanned the room. "Why don't you add a few names to your wall in here Stefan?" Charity blanched, not brave enough to do anything else but look away as Stefan plunged first into Tracy and then the two poor men who'd brought her and Faith here. The one glance of the future she had just had a hand in creating would be a difficult one for Klaus, so she supposed fate would give those poor people, and herself, their revenge.

* * *

Damon bit back a sigh as he poured Elena a glass of amber coloured bourbon. It was good to see her awake, sitting up and self-aware, for the first time in two days but the look on her face told him she'd have been better free from the weight for her thoughts for a while longer. "Here's a strong bourbon." He murmured, pressing the glass gently into her fragile hand. "Drink, it'll help, I promise." He could see that she was a little surprised when he didn't take a glass himself; instead sitting right in front of her, but the expression lasted only a moment on her deadened face before she took a swig of the bourbon. "He's really gone this time Damon." She stated as she gazed at him over the rim of the glass.

Damon winced at the conviction in her tone, the hopelessness in her tone hurt, although he'd always suspected it would come to this. "I know." He whispered, surprised at how much effort it took to force the words out.

Elena's still gaze abruptly fractured with pain, "Where _were_ you?" she demanded brokenly.

Damon felt himself flinch again, her undertone in her words hitting him hard, but he forced himself to hold her gaze. "I never should have left." He admitted, reaching out tentatively for her hand and grasping it tight when she didn't pull back, "I will _never_ leave you ever again Elena, I promise."

Elena stared at him for a moment before letting herself nod as she saw honesty, even vulnerability in his glacial glaze, but as she did so she felt a strange heat building in their clasped hands and then felt that heat shoot up her arm and into her chest. Her breath caught and Damon's face immediately faded.

"Elena?" Damon asked sharply as he saw her face drain of colour, her eyes closing as she slumped back on the couch. "What's wrong? _Elena_!"

**A/n: PLEASE REVIEW! :D This is my very first Vampire Diaries fic and I'd really appreciate feedback. Thanks. :)**


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